Ethylene-independent Promotion of Photomorphogenesis by Cytokinin Requires a Functional Cytokinin and Light Signaling Pathway.

The transition of skotomorphogenesis to photomorphogenesis is induced by the perception of light and is characterized by the inhibition of hypocotyl elongation and opening of cotyledons. Although it is known that the plant hormone cytokinin, when applied in high concentrations, inhibits hypocotyl elongation in the dark-grown Arabidopsis plants, it is unclear to what extent this response is the result of cytokinin alone or cytokinin-induced ethylene production. We show that treatment of etiolated seedlings in presence of ethylene inhibitors (eg. AgNO3) or treatment of the ethylene-resistant mutant ein2, resulted in a significant inhibition of hypocotyl elongation. This indicates that cytokinin induced de-etiolation is largely independent of ethylene and suggests a close connection between the cytokinin two component system and the light singalling networks. We show that this cytokinin signal is mainly mediated through the cytokinin receptor ARIBIDOPSIS HISTIDIN KINASE 3 (AHK3) and the ARABIDOPSIS RESPONSE REGULATORS 1 (ARR1) in combination with ARR12. Interestingly, mutation of COP1, DET1 and CIN4/COP10 renders plants insensitive to cytokinin and these factors are indispensable for the transcriptional response during cytokinin induced de-etiolation which indicates that a functional light signaling pathway is essential for this cytokinin response. In addition, the cytokinin effect on hypocotyl elongation is highly dependent on the ambient light conditions where higher light intensities causes a switch in the response to CK from an inhibitor to a promoter of hypocotyl elongation. Overall design: Investigation of the effect of 3 µM BA in presence of 10 µM AgNO3 on hypocotyl elongation in 4-days-old etiolated Arabidopsis seedlings, in triplicate, using RNA-seq analysis

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Cortleven A, Ehret S, Schmülling T, Johansson H